Sallie's Kitchen

I made these as an after school snack, and they disappeared so fast. They've even asked me to make more, so they must be good!!

Ingredients

1/4 pint sunflower oil

1 egg

284ml buttermilk, made up to 300ml with milk

1 lb 2 oz self raising flour

1 tsp English mustard powder

5 oz Cheddar grated

1 bunch spring onions, sliced

small bunch chives, snipped

1 oz Parmesan, grated

7 oz full fat soft cheese, cut into small cubes.

Method

Preheat oven to 180C fan

Whisk oil egg and buttermilk until combined.

Add all the other ingredients and gently combine, do not over mix.

Fill the holes in a muffin tin with the mixture.

I lined mine with muffin cases first and made 16 in total, the cases need to be very full.

Bake for 25 minutes.

I forgot to take photos!!!

Trifle is quintessentially English. It's been around for about 400 years, but has evolved over time. Originally more of a fool it became what we now understand to be trifle in the Victorian era. They added the booze soaked cake and the fruit separately to the cream. Whether a trifle has jelly or not seems to be a matter of personal preference. I like mine without. In fact my perfect trifle is just how mum makes it; sherry soaked sponge a layer of fruit, followed by custard and topped with whipped cream. I was always the special dessert in our house, especially if she over did it on the sherry!!!

In the sunny weather we have had for the past week (no doubt it will stop next week while the kids are off school) I made some Limoncello, so here is my updated version of trifle. It encompasses those lovely summer flavours of lemon and fresh fruit, I've not used custard as I find it rather heavy and wanted to keep this light.

Ingredients

1 pack sponge fingers

250g mascapone

300ml double cream

summer fruit (I used raspberries and blueberries)

300ml Limoncello

5 tbsp icing sugar

Method

Soak the sponge fingers in the Limoncello.

Whisk the mascapone with the cream and icing sugar until thick

Layer half the sponge fingers in your bowl.

Add half the fruit.

Spread over half the cream mixture.

Repeat these three layers.

Voila.

This is a lovely recipe and a lovely, tasty cake! It's from Good Food magazine.

Ingredients

5 oz butter

4 oz self raising flour

6 oz caster sugar

6 oz porridge oats

1 egg

4 oz glacé cherries

1 oz dark chocolate

Method

Preheat oven to 160C fan.

Line a 22cm tin with baking paper.

Mix flour sugar and oats in a large bowl.

Add beaten egg, melted butter and cherries, mix well.

Put into tin and spread out evenly.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Cool in the tin.

Remove from tin, melt chocolate. 

Drizzle chocolate over the top of the cake.

Cut into 16  pieces.

I find that the easiest and neatest way to drizzle chocolate is by making a piping bag out of grease proof paper like here

When I was little I used to love Iced Gems, a little round biscuit with a swirl of crunchy icing on top. mmm. I don't see them now, but here's my homemade ones.

This is a really good, easy basic biscuit recipe, useful for loads of different shape, then topped with a variety of things. Icing in loads of different decoration is good. My kids love these plain, they get all my sprinkles, marshmallows and icing pens and go mad decorating them, much more fun than eating them!!

Biscuits

125g Butter

125g Caster Sugar

1 Egg

1 tsp vanilla

250g Plain Flour

Preheat the oven to 170C fan.

Mix the butter and sugar until creamy.

Add the egg and vanilla and mix in.

Stir in the flour in two halves.

Kneed until smooth, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for half an hour.

Roll out on a well floured surface.

Use a small circle cutter to cut out the biscuits.

Re roll the trimmings, chilling again if necessary.

Bake the biscuits on a parchment lined baking sheet for 10-15 minutes. 

Cool and prepare the icing.

For the icing you need a stiff peak royal icing, here's how:

Stiff Peak royal icing

250g icing Sugar

1 egg white

1/2 tsp lemon juice

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and using an electric beater mix for about 6 minutes.

It will be really stiff, not at all sloppy and won't drop off a spoon.

You can now colour it as you wish.

Put into a piping bag, use a closed star nozzle and pipe a rose onto each biscuit.

Leave for half an hour for the icing to firm up.

Stor any remaining icing in a sealed tub in the fridge, it may need beating agin to use it.

Here is a lovely recipe for Fish Pie.

I love using carnation products in my baking and cooking, they are so versatile and make a lot of recipes so much easier and quicker. As well as tasting great!

This week I have dug out my Carnation Any One Can cook book and found some inspiration for some new meals. This is the first one we have tried.

Ingredients

1 1/2 lb potatoes

1 1/2 lb fish (I used salmon and prawns)

410g tin evaporated milk

1 oz butter

1 oz flour

1/4 pint white wine

6 oz cheese

salt and pepper

Method

Peel the potatoes and cut into cubes, boil until tender.

Place fish into your pie dish.

Combine wine, milk, butter and flour in a pan.

Heat until boiling stirring continuously.

when sauce has thickened stir in half the grated cheese.

Pour over the fish.

Top with the potatoes and remaining cheese.

Bake for 30-35 minutes at 180C fan.

We served it with peas.

These are now listed in my shop.

I had a bit of a disaster when knitting them. After knitting one sock I did something else for a week. When I knitted the second sock this is what I end up with:

So I had to knit another odd pair! Here is a matching pair.

Things have been a bit upside down in the kitchen this last week.

 I am recovering from surgery and can't do much at all at the moment.

 Saturday the twins were out all day at a party so this week baking club was Sunday.

For minimal effort and lifting (on my part) we made a fridge cake:

6oz butter

6oz chocolate

3 tbsp syrup

4oz cherries

4 oz Maltesers

2oz sultanas

2oz pistachios

melt the butter, chocolate and syrup in a pan